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A KOFORIDUA High Court has sentenced a farmer to death by hanging for gruesomely murdering his wife in 2003 at Adakuma, a farming community in the Birim South District of the Eastern Region.

The convict, Yaw Nkrumah, 43, was found guilty of murder contrary to section 47 of Act 29/60 by a jury after five years of full trial at the High Court.

Facts of the case presented to the court by the prosecution officer, Mrs Emily Addo-Okyereh, the Eastern Regional State Attorney, were that the wife of the convict, who was 26 years old when she was killed, was married to the convict, Nkrumah, who was 28 years old then for 10 years and they had three children.

The prosecutor told the court that in the month of October 2003, the love relationship between the couple turned sour, a problem which both families of the couples failed to resolve after several attempts to reconcile them.

The wife of the convict insisted on divorce .On November 17, 2003, the wife decided to leave Adakuma village for her hometown, Adansi Fomena, and at about 9:00 a.m. set off with her three children on foot from the village towards Anyinam Kotoku.

One Yaw Asare, alias Baffuor, offered assistance to the wife by helping her carry her luggage but took the lead because he was in hurry.

On her way, Nkrumah, who had laid ambush armed with a pestle, suddenly emerged from a palm plantation and ordered his wife to put down the younger child whom she was carrying at her back, which she obliged.

Nkrumah pushed off the luggage the wife was carrying on her head and violently kicked her multiple times on her head with the pestle till she died.

Asare, the man who had assisted the woman to carry her luggage, upon hearing distress screams of the woman quickly run there to find out what was happening only to see Nkrumah gruesomely hitting the wife with a pestle, and out of fear, he ran towards Anyinam.

Nkrumah, after the dastardly act, fled. Later, a woman who was passing by assisted the three children who were stranded on the way back to Adakuma.

The inhabitants, upon hearing the sad incident, went wild and mounted a manhunt for the convict to arrest him but he later surrendered himself to them and was handed over to the police.

The convict pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder.

During many years of trial, prosecution succeeded in proving the charge against the convict through the five witnesses and exhibits such as the wooden pestle, the post-mortem report of the deceased and crime scene photograph.